This was the first "base camp" that we had during the first night, at Jackson Falls, Southern Illinois. There's no one else there camping but us.

Rained heavily the next morning and we changed our plan and drove another 6 hours to Red River Gorge, Kentucky. "The Red" was rated one of the best five sport climbing in US.

At the Red, the sandstone walls are sharp and spiky. Unforgiving. Even a 5.10b climb (6B) with all jugs (full grasp handholds) gave me a pump after 3/4 into the climb, something that didn't happen to me before at indoor gyms.

New lesson learned: Climb easier grades.

Brian on the right, facing the camera. Super climber.

Geoff, from Wisconsin. Good and relaxing climber.

Ilham, superb endurance and "didn't get much climbing done" climber because we were trying out too many hard stuff. Lucky that we found a few nice climbs that Geoff lead and followed by Ilham.

Oh yeah, she's from Shah Alam.

*Photo: Natural shower from the cliffs after a night of rain.

Miguel, a climber that makes really good pizza, is the owner of this parlor with a big pice of land attached to it. The backyard is filled with camps and climbers. Beside the pathway leading to the backyard, a sign reads "camping for climbers only". In short, peace and quiet. Two dollars per night required but no enforced, sort of donation to keep the place well.

There's a clean flush toilet, pay-per-hot-shower, and a canteen. A huge fire pit sits right in front of the canteen and fire would burn most of the nights. Climbers would sit by the fire on the logs (photo above) and chat the night away.

In the afternoons, before dinner time, a lot would be reading and some would be having fun with the circus-style walk-on-the line game. A one-inch wide sewn webbing was attached between two trees at the back of the basketball hoop. Forgot to take a picture of that.